Page 13 - Regional Employment & Skills Plan

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The creation of these groups has allowed for the collection of a range of primary data of both a quantitative and qualitative nature through both focus group sessions and surveys2. This data has been invaluable and will serve as the primary source of demand evidence for the region.
Complementing this consultation was the commissioning of a piece of work into determining the skills needs of small and medium enterprises based in the region. This work captured the detailed views of companies3 of differing sizes from across the region. This information has been analysed in conjunction with the primary data gathered by the RLSP and will form the employer insight element of this plan.
A further integral stage of this phase was to contextualise this ‘real-time’, representative employer insight through the analysis of a range of secondary labour market intelligence (LMI)4 acquired via WG. This analysis allows deduction of the region’s performance in terms of the economy and education coupled with information on population and business demographies.
The level of employer engagement conducted by the RLSP confirms that this plan has considered not only secondary LMI but also the ‘real-time’ needs of the key employers within the region.
1.2.2 Supply Analysis
Phase two sees the analysis of the curriculum supply information5 provided by WG to the RLSP for consideration against the demand intelligence gathered in phase one. A key element of this phase was the development of a provider cluster group which includes representation from the 5 FE colleges and 4 universities delivering in the region and National Training Federation Wales (NTfW), Cambrian Training, Careers Wales, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Education through Regional Working (ERW). This engagement was integral in underpinning the work undertaken by the RLSP in the analysis of the appropriateness of curriculum provision and how recommendations were made at a sectoral level.
A full list of annexes can be accessed here http://www.rlp.org.uk/employment-and-skills-plan-2017-annexes/
1.3 Limitations & Factors for Consideration
When reading this document a number of factors should be considered, these are;
• As per the specification from WG this plan only serves to make recommendations on full time vocational provision and elements of work based learning. This supporting data can be seen in annex 1 within the supply summary. The RLSP appreciates that this is a small portion of the post-16 offer available within the region as it does not consider school level provision, A-level provision, the current higher education offer or adult and community learning. It is the hope of the RLSP to produce a regional plan which fully comprehends the entirety of the post-16 landscape, fully addressing these limitations in future iterations with the support of WG.
• The educational provision data provided to the RLSP by WG is aggregated to a regional level and it is therefore impossible to identify the offer of individual institutions. The RLSP appreciates that this presents challenges when attempting to make recommendations on changes to delivery as sub-regional differences are not accounted for. The RLSP hope to address these issues in future iterations of the plan through agreement with WG and the individual providers themselves.
2 A list of employers engaged with can be seen in annex 2 3 A list of employers engaged with can be seen in annex 2 4 This data can be seen in annex 3
5 This data can be seen in the Supply Summary in annex 1
Regional Employment & Skills Plan South West & Mid Wales Purpose